""There are little things that I can concentrate on now more and more. It's crazy — she's been here almost a year, but if I actually look back on what it was like before she was here, it was so much harder. We're about to go into a stressful season for us, and now it's not even a thought in my head because so much more is off our plates, we're so much more efficient in what we're doing.""
— John Lutes, Vice President of Operations
The Challenge
As Vice President of Operations at Graphium Health, a cloud-based software company serving anesthesia providers and healthcare organizations, John Lutes found himself stretched dangerously thin. The demands of his role had grown beyond what one person could manage alone, and the pressure was taking a toll.
"My boss reached out to BELAY first. He and I met up in Dallas almost a year ago, and I was like, 'Listen, I am just getting run over. I don't have time.'"
John's boss had already begun working with a BELAY Virtual Assistant and recognized the same need in John. The challenge wasn't just workload — it was finding the right person quickly. As John put it,
"Finding good people is hard."
John needed someone who could step in fast, integrate into a close-knit company culture, and handle a wide variety of operational tasks without extensive hand-holding. The clock was ticking.
The Solution
After reaching out to their Client Success Consultant, John was matched with BELAY Virtual Assistant Tessa Woollam in just two to three weeks — and the partnership hit the ground running.
"Tessa was brought on to help with kind of a reorganization of the sales product, and she has since been a jack of all trades. I am fully, 100-percent confident in knowing that she is completely able to do all [that I give her] and more."
Tessa quickly became indispensable, taking on responsibilities across recruiting and hiring, leading meetings when John was unavailable, and owning all things HubSpot. Perhaps most importantly, she didn't just fill a functional role — she became a cultural fit from day one.
"Culture is such a big deal to us, and it's something we actually consciously work on a lot, and she just fit in without a problem,"John says. Tessa echoed the sentiment, crediting open communication and mutual respect as the foundation of their successful working relationship.
""Getting matched with Graphium is such a win. I wasn't sure if anesthesia was up my alley, and it completely surprised me. I'm so thankful and I love being a part of the team.""
— John Lutes, Vice President of OperationsThe Impact
With Tessa handling the operational details that once consumed his day, John found himself able to focus on the work that truly required his attention — and to approach a demanding stretch ahead with calm instead of anxiety.
"What we've done over the last year has now put us in a position to be able to do the things we know we need to do over the next six months, and Tessa's obviously been a huge part of that."
The efficiency gains were felt across the entire organization, not just by John. The impact of both Tessa and Jennifer — his boss's BELAY VA — reverberated through every level of the team.
"That's literally every single person in this company that would say the exact same thing about Tessa and Jennifer,"John notes.
Beyond the professional wins, John found something he hadn't anticipated:
"One of my biggest wins outside of everything else is a friendship I didn't expect."For a company that places culture at its core, that may be the most meaningful result of all.